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abdifarah · 4 years

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Snake Charmer

I grabbed my sneakers and ball from the backseat of my car. As I stepped onto the basketball court, the palm of a stranger’s hand suddenly hit my chest before my foot crossed the threshold of the out-of-bounds line, as if to protect me from stepping into molten lava. It was in fact hallowed ground he was preparing me to enter. “I don’t want to mess up your day, but Kobe Bryant died.” The words did not register. He must have meant to say Bill Russell or Magic Johnson or some other retired player, up in years or immunocompromised. My heart sank as the words did. Seemingly coordinated with the stranger’s preparatory address, my phone began to shriek. I shared basketball, above most else, with my closest friends, and for those of my friends “not into sports,” they knew I was and that I was probably the one person in their lives that could explain why their instagram and twitter timelines had been commandeered by the news of Bryant’s death. I sat on the court and texted friends I hadn’t spoken with in years. I mentally ran through all of the Lakers fans in my life, like someone tallying loved ones near the epicenter of an earthquake or tsunami.

The surprises continued. My uncle Kenny called me. Kenny, like most of the men in my life, does not make calls. When I see Kenny during the holidays we do not hug or catch up with small talk. Me and Kenny speak solely in sports. “How are the Cowboys doing?” translates to how are you doing? On this occasion Kenny did not resort to code. “Are you okay?” Kenny asked with a tone of genuine concern in his voice. Strangely, I was not. Stepping out of my body momentarily, I watched myself frantically text friends and scour the internet for updates with large tears welling up in my eyes. Importantly, next to me, five or so other guys on the basketball court were doing the exact same thing. I was dumbfounded, and even a little amused that it was Kobe Bryant, of all people, that elicited this reaction from me. As a basketball fan I loved Kobe Bryant as a player, but I didn’t love him. I loved Kobe the way the world loves the Dalai Lama. Kobe was that inhuman child/god/king we watched grow up, do great exploits, and whose often trite proverbs of ostensible wisdom we warily entertained. His sudden and violent death brought into swift focus that, while famous for almost my entire life, I took Kobe for granted.

Kobe Bryant was the first of us to realize: the camera is always on. In the days and weeks following Kobe’s death I found myself pulling up old games on youtube and having them on in the background while I worked. I was surprised how many of the beats–a certain sequence of plays, a specific call by an announcer–I remembered, like I was watching reruns or listening to a throwback radio station. As much as The Fresh Prince or Martin or Seinfeld, Kobe Bryant was TV. Mostly to my frustration, as someone who ineffectually rooted against the Lakers, Kobe Bryant was always on my screen. Undoubtedly, a cloud hangs over everything related to Bryant now in light of his death, but rewatching games from the 2000 finals, in which Bryant’s Lakers bested the Reggie Miller/Jalen Rose led Pacers, I was reminded of how much uneasiness and sadness I felt for Kobe Bryant watching him even as a teenage admirer. After every exceptional defensive play, flashy pass, or difficult made shot, Bryant made sure the camera saw the fiery glint in his eyes, the licking of his lips, the exaggerated clinching of his jaw.

Even more so than the NBA’s previous generation of celebrities–Bird, Magic, Jordan–Kobe Bryant seemed to be the first superstar to internalize that basketball was a performance: a movie backed by a John Tesh score, or more specifically, a loosely scripted 24-7 reality show complete with story arcs, heroes, villains, close-ups, and backstabbing confessions. Bryant perpetually signalled: to the camera, to the fans, to his haters, to his teammates, that he possessed the most passion, that he outworked everyone, and that he would stop at nothing to be the best. By all accounts this was all true. But we knew it less because it was true and more because Kobe wanted us to know. Even as a youngster I found his thirst obnoxious.

Kobe was desperate, but he was also just ahead of the curve. Kobe Bryant proudly admitted to not having a social life, and almost a decade before Russell Westbrook said it, Bryant proclaimed that “Spalding was his only friend;” a both sad and sobering admission for any would-be competitors tasked with defeating Bryant on the court. Bryant’s performative work, that now permeates and characterizes most of millennial culture, predated social media. The author Touré in his book, I Would Die 4U, contends that despite being a baby boomer, Prince was the quintessential GenX celebrity, whose music perfectly tapped into that younger generation’s disaffected, countercultural ethos. Born in 1978, Bryant technically resides in GenX. The intense outpouring from all corners of the digital world over Bryant’s death stems from the fact that he was truly the first millennial celebrity.

For Bryant, fame came before success. As the photogenic rookie for the Lakers, Bryant had cameos on sitcoms, graced the cover of every teen magazine, took Brandy to the prom, put out a rap album, and pitched every soda and sneaker Madison Avenue could throw at him. But like an inflated college application, Bryant’s extracurriculars read as contrivances. Bryant was named a starter in the 1998 All-Star game, an honor voted on by the fans, meanwhile he wasn’t even a starter on his own team. To suspicious observers, Bryant was an industry plant; the antidote to the fearful influx of hyper-black, hip hop culture embodied in players like Allen Iverson or Latrell Spreewell; a basketball and marketing robot with a pearly white smile, that spoke multiple languages, and would pick up where Michael Jordan left off; ushering the NBA to unprecedented commercial heights.

Despite his superficial charm, Kobe Bryant’s lack of genuine personality proved off-putting, almost creepy. Although possessing a similarly shimmering smile, everyone knew that the real Michael Jordan chomped on cigars, pounded tequila, gambled through the night, and did not actually hang out with Bugs Bunny while wearing Hanes tighty-whities. We acknowledged humanity, healthiness even, in this contradiction. For Bryant’s generation of sports superstars, the public and private arrived flattened. A sports prodigy, a la Tiger Woods, Bryant’s lone-gun, misanthropic persona emerged as a defense against the alienation he felt from his teammates and colleagues around the league, those that did not share his cloistered upbringing. Bryant’s longtime teammate and consummate foil, Shaquille O’Neal, had the nickname, Superman. Despite his titanic presence and supernatural physical gifts, O’Neal epitomized the terrestrial; always joking, dancing; embedded in pop culture; a true man of the people. The true Kryptonian was always Bryant.

As an ignorant seventeen year-old, my initial reaction in 2004 to the accusations of rape against Bryant was amused shock. “Kobe Bryant has sex?!” In 2004, I, like many, put Kobe on the shelf. Less out of a desire to proactively make any bold gestures on behalf of women, but more out of petty schadenfreude. As stated before, I respected the talent, but I was not really a Kobe fan. I always rooted for the underdog, and Bryant was anything but. To the contrary, everything about Bryant was an assault on the concept of the underdog, the diamond in the rough, the idea that anyone, despite their humble or downright degraded beginnings, could rise to excellence. Bryant was born and bread to be great. Sadly, I took grim pleasure in seeing the NBA’s posterboy–the prototype of black celebrity respectability–revealed as the actual embodiment of the entitled, toxically masculine, and sexually predatory stereotype of the black athlete.

Bryant lost endorsements. Nike released the Huarache 2K4, an all-time great basketball shoe originally designed to be Bryant’s first signature release with the brand, as simply a stand-alone product. The Lakers shopped Bryant around for possible trades. Like Sampson sheared and stripped of his powers, Bryant’s hairline appeared to recede, he cut off his signature fro, and he began shaving his head closer and closer. Bryant changed his number from 8 to 24 as one now changes their Instagram or Twitter handle to represent a break from the past. Like a biblical character after a traumatic or transformative event, like Abram becoming Abraham, or Saul becoming Paul, Bryant adopted the moniker of the Black Mamba. He resigned to allow the sorting hat to place him in his rightful house of Slytherin, and embraced the duplicitous snake that many already viewed him to be. Somewhat strangely, the Black Mamba was the assassin code name of the main character in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, who in the film is left for dead, and out for revenge. Did Bryant see himself as this woman wronged, or as the titular character, Bill, contently awaiting his deserved day of judgement. Knowing Bryant, he probably saw himself as both.

In the myth of Hercules (not the Disney version) the famous god-man kills his wife and kids in a fit of hysteria inflicted by a vengeful Hera. If we imagine that the mythical figures of today were really just the celebrities and aristocrats of past millennia who had control over the pen of history and whose carnal tales swelled into sacred gospel; the fits of rage and mania brought on by the devil or hades or a poison arrow, were really the Chappaquiddicks, Vegas hotel rooms, and dog fighting compounds of their time; times when our heroes unequivocally and inexcusably committed evil. If Hercules was in fact a real man of some importance to his time–the son of a dignitary–that unfathomably killed his wife and kids, it follows that instead of being sentenced to death or some other fate reserved for the criminal commoner, that he would be given some lesser sentence and a chance–albeit slim–of redemption. Hercules is banished by the gods to serve an insignificant king and accomplish the arduous good works assigned to him as a means of atonement; the great works–slaying the nine-headed hydra, retrieving cerberus –that ultimately generate his immortal legend.

Bryant’s post rape case/post Shaquille O’Neal years with the Lakers mirror this herculean restitution. Despite years on center stage, the Lakers, like Bryant, were similarly in their nadir, and would spend the middle of the aughts in basketball purgatory. Bryant was no longer primetime television. What happens to a pop-star when no one is watching? Surprisingly, Kobe Bryant kept performing, and at higher heights. Bryant was doing his best work while no one was watching. I remember walking through the door of my college dorm on a non-descript spring day. My roommate, Bryun, yelled at me with no context, “8 1 P O I N T S !” Kobe Bryant’s 81 point game may lay claim as the first social media sports moment. Less because no other great sports moments had occurred between 2004, when facebook emerged, and his scoring explosion in 2006, but because very few people watched that midseason contest between two mediocre teams live. It arrived to everyone, like myself, after the fact.

During a recent lecture, artist Dave McKenzie, when answering a very banal question during a post lecture q&a, about his long term goals as an artist, answered soberingly, “I’m just trying to get through this life and do the least amount of harm.” While we all hope to navigate this life without hurting others, most, if not all of us, will in some way. While we can and must continue to interrogate why powerful (or at least useful to the actual powerful) men like Kobe Bryant seemingly evade the full reckoning of their actions, we must acknowledge that Bryant became something of a patron saint to those who for whatever reason found themselves on the wrong side of right. Maybe they were the underprivileged black and brown boys and girls in over-policed neighborhoods of LA where Bryant played for 20 years. Perhaps they were not pure victims but made some questionable choices and found themselves caught in the system. Or maybe it was the newly divorced father attempting to win back the respect of his kids after breaking apart his family due to his own indiscretions. Kobe Bryant in this second half of his career, culminating in back to back championships, provided a picture of how one climbs back from the depths of hell, even if they were the one that put themself there. This explains the irrationality of Kobe fans, who defended him in everything, and straight-faced spoke his name in the same breath as Michael Jordan, despite honestly being in a class below. For them, Kobe was bigger than basketball, and while many fans share a vicarious relationship with their sports heroes or teams, Bryant’s winning was more profoundly linked to his fans’ sense of self-worth.

Precocity embodied, Bryant arrived in the NBA a generation too soon. As the son of a former player, singularly focused on professionalizing at a young age, even foregoing college at a time when that was still a rarity, Bryant was an alien compared to most players of his generation. The trajectory of players today more resembles Bryant’s. Gone are the days of Dennis Rodman or Scottie Pippen or Steve Nash picking up basketball late, or being undiscovered and surreptitiously landing on a small college team, eventually catching the eye of the larger basketball world. Now, professional basketball starts disturbingly early. Prospects like Zion Williamson have millions of Instagram followers in high school. Second generation pros are commonplace – Steph, Klay, Kyrie, Devin Booker, Andrew Wiggins, Domantas Sabonis, Austin Rivers, Tim Hardaway Jr., Glenn Robinson III, and so on. Bryant was the cautionary tale, a sage mentor, and ultimately an icon to the generation of players succeeding Bryant, who like him, entered the spotlight and scrutiny of an increasingly voracious sports machine as children. Thanks in part to witnessing the triumphs and travails of Bryant, today’s young superstars arrive to the league encoded with the understanding that the fans, the media, the sports industry writ large, wait with baited breath for them to fuck up off the court as much as they do a spectacular play in the game. To these various stakeholders, it’s all good entertainment.

[A bit of a tangent] As the coronavirus began to ravage New Orleans, in particular the homeless and already vulnerable of the city, I had a group of friends, more acquaintances, who took it upon themselves to collect donations, buy groceries, prepare and ultimately hand out meals to the large number of homeless people mostly living under the I-10 overpass downtown. As a naturally cynical person, I immediately questioned the motivations. All of those same homeless people were living under the overpass before coronavirus, where was this energy then? One friend involved with this effort confided that she was incredibly anxiety stricken in all of this, and that this “project” was taking her mind off things. I chafed at the phrasing of feeding the homeless as a “project.” Additionally, daily I would scroll through the Instagram feeds of those helping and see pics of cute hipsters in masks and gloves and in grungy, rugged, but still impossibly chic outfits posing in Power Ranger formations in front of their rusted Ford Ranger filled with grocery bags to distribute. A masterclass in virtue signalling, the narcissism of it all polluted the entire endeavor for me. When I asked a trusted voice why this all rubbed me the wrong way, this person replied curtly, “What does it matter why or how they do it? They’re doing a good thing.”

Kobe did not simply embrace this role of elder-statesman to the succeeding generation, he courted it, campaigned for this mantle as aggressively as he once sought championships. Lacking confidence in the intellect of the public to make their own conjectures of how Bryant resurrected his career, he rebranded himself a self-improvement life-couch, and proselytized his “Mamba Mentality,” even staging a parody Tony Robbins style conference as a Nike commercial. He collected young promising players to mentor like Leonardo DiCaprio collects young blonde models to date. Gossipy whispers swirled every offseason, “Kobes working with Kawhi.” or “Watch out for Jason Tatum this year; he spent the summer training with Kobe.” All of Kobe’s newfound openhandedness seemed spiked with self-aggrandizement. Opting to be the mentor of the next generation ensured that the success of future stars led back to him, and that he would be relevant and sought after long after his retirement.

Whatever the subconscious or even conscious motivations behind Bryant’s mentorship, his movie Dear Basketball, or his show Detail–in which he broke down the games of basketball players across levels and leagues, treating women’s college basketball standout Sabrina Ionescu with the same care and reverence as NBA star James Harden–the result was education, service, stewardship, and love for the game of basketball.

I started writing this soon after Bryant’s death but struggled to synthesize an ultimate point. In the end I am not sure I have one, just that Kobe Bryant, much to my surprise was a figure of enough complexity and enduring relevance to require re-interrogation. In hindsight, I needed to watch The Last Dance; the 10 part Michael Jordan re-coronation. In 2009 newly elected President Barack Obama, after stumbling over the oath of office during the freezing January inauguration, retook the oath the next day in a private ceremony just in case any of his political enemies, or the fomenting alt right with its myriad factions–from the conspiratorial to the downright racist–tried to invalidate his presidency. While trivial in comparison, Jordan, with The Last Dance is attempting desperately to reconfirm that he is the greatest basketball player of all-time, something only a few lunatics question. While the actual game footage is a wonder and leaves no doubt of Jordan’s basketball supremacy, the final tally of this hagiographic enterprise may result in a net loss for Jordan. Jordan, like a 19th century robber baron, seems to genuinely believe that his misanthropy, arrogance, condescension, usury, brutality, workaholism, and myopic focus on basketball, and consummate self-centeredness were all justified, required even, to win. To win what? Championships? With sports leagues and public officials debating when and if sports can and should come back amidst a virus with devastating life or death stakes, sports and success within them feel quite trivial and quaint at the moment.

Having won at everything in life, sitting in his palatial mansion, sipping impossibly overpriced scotch, Jordan does not seem fulfilled. He is Ebenezer Scrooge. Unfortunately, it is not Christmas, and no ghosts of introspection are visiting Jordan, only a camera crew determined to retell the gospel of Jordan with a few non-canonical details sprinkled in for flavor. I am reminded of a line in Pat Conroy’s My Losing Season, an autobiographical account of his college basketball days at The Citadel. After a storied career, Conroy’s senior season is a disaster (hence the title). In it he says no one ever learned anything by winning. The inference is that, while winning is great, the actual growth occurs before, in the losing. Jordan in The Last Dance is the ghastly personification of “never losing. Like Bane before breaking Batman’s back, “Victory has defeated you.” With an unimpeachable resumé, Jordan was never required to question his actions or behaviors towards his teammates and competitors. Worshiped unwaveringly by all, Jordan never felt the need to give anything back to the game or to the communities that supported him.

While never verbally conceding, Bryant seemed to embrace being the loser. Bryant realized early, perhaps as early as Colorado, that he was never going to be as beloved as Jordan. He began planning early for a life outside of basketball. He started a production company. He braved eye-rolls for the n-teenth time when he proclaimed that he was going to be a “storyteller.” Beyond a cliché adage, Bryant became a “family man,” and focused on this part of his life with the same ferocity that he once attacked the basket. Despite braving turmoil very publicly as a young couple, the bond between Bryant and his wife Vanesa appeared, at least on the outside, genuine. They welcomed their newest daughter, Capri, just 7 months before his death. While no less ambitious or busy in retirement, the Bryant who once wore his insecurity and desperation on his sweaty armband, strangely appeared content, happy. The guy who once proudly proclaimed “Spalding his only friend” relented to a verdant life with others.

While undoubtedly compounded by the tragic and sudden nature of his death, the truly astounding outpouring for Kobe–murals the world over, calf-length tattoos, millions of twitter handle re-namings–stands as an accomplishment, or better said, an acknowledgement that “better” athletes like Jordan or LeBron or Tiger or Brady will probably never receive. He wasn’t the best of us, and in many ways we loved him even more because of that. Before The Last Dance we got a preview of the more candid Michael Jordan during Kobe Bryant’s memorial, where Michael, who unbeknownst to us all was a confidant of Bryant’s, admitted that Kobe made him want to be a better father, a better person. In the end even the GOAT was a disciple of the Mamba. It’s only right that the first millennial superstar gained the biggest following.

#Kobe #Mamba #thelastdance #lastdance #michael jordan #goat

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sneakerhistory · 5 years

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How many professional athletes are so legendary that they are celebrated around the globe and throughout social media on back to back days? The answer is one, and that is Kobe Bryant. With a birthday that lands on 8/23 and “Mamba Day” that lands on 8/24, which are the two jersey numbers that Kobe Bryant wore during his career, the Black Mamba is still top of mind for sneakerheads. The longevity and importance of Kobe Bryant signature sneakers cannot be overstated. From his early years, fresh out of high school and signed with adidas, through his free agency year during the 2002-2003 season, his 11 signature sneakers with Nike before he retired, and even beyond, thanks to the Nike Kobe AD line, the Black Mamba’s sneakers have been at the forefront of performance basketball shoes.

As you scroll through this list of the best Kobe Bryant signature sneakers, keep in mind that we only included models with Kobe’s name or initials included. That means shoes that may be associated with him, like the adidas Top Ten 2000, Nike Zoom Huarache 2K4, Nike Zoom Huarache 2K5, and the countless exclusive colorways he’s had along the way in various models are not included.

20. Nike Kobe AD Mid

Nick Says: To me, the AD Mid comes across as very lazy. It doesn’t look much different from the previous model, and it’s just kind of boring. What they did with the layered knit Swoosh was dope though.

19. Nike Kobe AD 2016

Robbie Says: It’s not the Kobe AD did anything particularly wrong, it’s just the fact that it didn’t do anything particularly right… It was low, it had the Kobe logo and utilized Zoom cushioning, but outside of that everything was extremely ‘meh.’ Kudos to the stylish, Vegeta-like, heel clip though, that was awesome.

18. Nike Kobe AD NXT

Nick Says: Between the backward-facing Swoosh, the shroud, and the quick lace system underneath it, the AD NXT stands out from the rest of the retirement-era AD models. If this model received better colorways and some more on-court appearances, it would be much higher on the list.

17. adidas KB8 3

Nick Says: Most people have been wearing a piece of the adidas KB8 3 for the past few years and they don’t even know it. The YEEZY 500 uses the same tooling as this Kobe Bryant signature sneaker that originally released in 1999. To me, it’s a perfect representation of the era. In fact, if you look closely, you can kind of see the similarities in the shape of the And1 Tai Chi, which Vince Carter won the dunk contest in that same season.

16. adidas KB8 2

Nick Says: The adidas KB8 II was another that utilized Feet You Wear technology. If you hooped in these back in the day, they are probably higher up your list. The layered paneling and three-dimensional textures are still impressive to this day. T-Mac also laced up the white pair when he was playing in Toronto, so there’s that.

15. Nike Kobe 11

Nick Says: Kobe played his last game in the 11, so it’s important enough that I’d pick up a pair of the Fade To Blacks even though it’s relatively boring. That says everything you need to know about this shoe. Mamba out.

14. Nike Kobe 3

Nick Says: The Kobe 3 is my least favorite from the early years of the Nike Kobe shoes. I appreciate the attempt to tie in the waffle sole but it just feels like a miss to me.

13. Nike Kobe 2

Nick Says: The Kobe 2 was not as impressive to me as the Kobe 1, but I’m a sucker for straps, so it gets a thumbs up. Looking at it now, the rounded shape of the outsole seems much more drastic than I remember it.

12. Nike Kobe 7

Nick Says: I love the interchangeable aspects of the Nike Kobe 7 “System” and this release had some of the best commercials of all the Kobe sneakers.

11. adidas Kobe 1

Robbie Says: Kobe was a young bull by 1998 and the Kobe 1 harnessed his new-age style of play within a sneaker with pure style. They’re not for everyone and that’s okay, but you can’t tell me that another shoe looks like the adidas Kobe (in a positive sense).

10. Nike Kobe AD 2018

Robbie Says: Sometimes a shoe just looks good, like darn good, and the latest Kobe AD installment is surely a looker. From a performance standpoint, they shined; and they were Kyle Kuzma’s weapon of choice throughout the 2018-19 season too. Every element of the upper was well throughout and executed perfectly. These are a change in the right direction for Kobe’s post-career kicks.

9. Nike Kobe 10

Robbie Says: Variety is the spice of life, so the Kobe X sure was spicy. I love how they came in 3 versions: Flyknit High, Flyknit Low, and EM and how each variant offered something new to the Kobe X equation. My favorite part of the Kobe X was the cool tooling (midsole/outsole), it’s futuristic and simplistic aesthetic hit every note for me. Oh, and the HTM x Kobe X collection was hands down my favorite HTM pack ever.

8. Kobe AD NXT 360

Nick Says: The Kobe AD NXT 360 is one of those shoes that has such interesting tech that how it looks doesn’t even matter. The NXT 360 is basically a Flyknit sock with an outsole attached. It wraps completely around your foot, hence the “360” in the name. It’s $200 price point kept me away.

7. Nike Kobe 5

Robbie Says: Kobe’s fifth signature shoe with Nike was great, I’m not denying that one bit, but they didn’t do anything groundbreaking in my opinion. Nike took what worked with the Kobe 4 and refined it, but I look at the 5 as a half-step towards pure greatness rather than a leap. My biggest qualm with the 5 was its plastic-y panel construction – I didn’t like it nearly as much as the Kobe 4, or the Kobe 6. Don’t get it twisted, at the end-of-the-day, I love the Kobe 5.

6. adidas KB8

Nick Says: The adidas KB8, which is now called the adidas Crazy 8, is one of the most important basketball shoes in the modern era. It’s arguably the best basketball shoe adidas made before Boost. There’s also been a lot of good retro colorways over the years, which can’t be said about a lot of retros.

5. Nike Kobe 9

Nick Says: The boxing shoe-inspired style of the high-top version is not for me. However, the quality of materials used on the Kobe 9, and the gratuitous use of carbon fiber, is nothing short of impressive. I’m still on the hunt for a pair of the lows for a decent price.

Nike Kobe 1 x NORT and Nike Kobe 1 x Premium Goods photo by Marvin De La Cruz

4. Nike Kobe 1

Robbie Says: Leather construction, how beautiful you are. 81 points. Legendary colorways. Yup (King of the Hill voice)

Nick Says:

The first signature model from Nike was basically Nike and Kobe flexing on the entire basketball footwear world with a classic design and unmistakeable Swoosh. The numbers Kobe put up in these make it that much more special. Not to mention, Nike’s limited production of the NORT and Premium Goods version changed the way social media and blogs were used to create customized products.

3. Nike Kobe 4

Nick Says: To me, this is the best Kobe signature sneaker of all. I think if you take into consideration Kobe leading the Lakers to their first NBA Championship without Shaq, and the fact that this shoe changed the way people thought about low-cut basketball sneakers, it’s the most impactful sneaker in the whole Kobe legacy.

2. Nike Kobe 8

Robbie Says: Okay, okay, okay, let me defend this pick right quick.

a) With a PPG average of 27.3, Kobe was a walking bucket throughout the 2012-13 season. Proving that will out-weighted age (you know, until he got hurt.

b) The Kobe 8’s Lunarlon was perfect, the cut was ultra-low & offered a fantastic range of motion, and the snake-like EM upper was light and airy.

c) They looked damn good in my book, and it’s my list so please, @ me.

Nick Says:

There were some incredible colorways on the Kobe 8 and I think Engineered Mesh is a very underappreciated technology and this really kicked off the “What The” releases beyond Dunks in my opinion.

1. Nike Kobe 6

Robbie Says: What says Black Mamba more than textured snake print? Nothing, the answer is always nothing. I absolutely adored the 6’s heel clip design, I loved the breathable tongue, I loved the under-foot feel, I loved every aspect of this shoe. There’a pair of Kobe 6 FTBs in my closet alongside some OGs and I can safely say that Nike knows how to flawlessly reproduce this model – can’t wait for the Protro next year.

Nick Says: I can’t rock with any of the snakeskin-like materials in the Kobe line but as I mentioned on the podcast, the launch of the Grinch Kobe 6 on Christmas Day changed the way most of the footwear brands thought about how to market sneakers. It led to me shooting courtside at the Clippers game for Li-Ning and Baron Davis, too. So I respect it, despite not being a fan of the style.

For more on Kobe Sneakers, check out Episode 45 of our podcast.

The Best Kobe Bryant Signature Sneakers How many professional athletes are so legendary that they are celebrated around the globe and throughout social media on back to back days?

#adidas #Kobe Bryant #Kobe Sneakers #Nike

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